Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Acylal synthesis without acetic anhydride?

notmydayjob - 7-9-2011 at 09:46

My first post, I'm a longtime reader (lurker?) and the information on this site has helped me immensely, so just want to start by thanking everyone here and the moderators, there are some truly brilliant people here who have saved my wallet and my butt several times.

On to the question:

I've recently become interested in forming 1,1-diacetates (acylals) from aldehydes. All of the references I have found use Ac2O and a variety of catalysts. Does anyone know of a way to form an acylal without Ac2O, seeing as that is a difficult reagent for me to obtain?

DDTea - 12-9-2011 at 19:25

Welcome to Sciencemadness. Although I don't have any suggestions on synthesis of 1,1-diacetates, I can point you to a thread about obtaining acetic anhydride: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=9

The information contained in that thread will be useful to you if you pursue the Ac2O route.

notmydayjob - 13-9-2011 at 19:49

Thanks for the welcome! I did read that thread, there were some interesting thoughts. I don't want to kill myself with ketene, but the acetone, cyanuric chloride, triethylamine route for acetyl chloride, and from there proceed to AA sound good, was just hoping I could skip that step.

Thanks!